Dinh AaronMk

American Dream: A Shattered Union

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

Again, something I can accept but I'd think it'd only really be an issue for the southern most nations as I don't think small ships can get from the islands to the north without stopping.

Although that does bring up the interesting idea of them having pit stops along the way north in territory where they're grant special permissions and contracts by the local rulers to dock there for a certain fee or mercenary work. It could also be a clan-by-clan sort of deal where collectively they're known as the "Rum Roaders" <working title> or something but they're actually a whole bunch of different factions with some being more trade focused and others more raid focused.

@ClocktowerEchos

I'd think Cuban cities would be the earliest places for them to stop where sugar cane may be grown to enough of an effect they can continue on to the mainland US. Travelling around the Florida keys and into Southern Florida itself might be the next earliest stop. And then like the Silk Road they sell everything there or most of it, get their staple foods and stuff to trade back on the route home and then go back to Jamaica or beyond. It'd be such a bucket-line as the Silk Road was that no one might ever see a Jamaican, but they'll certainly handle their rum as it travels beyond along the Mississippi or other river routes.

American Dream: A Shattered Union

EDIT: @Dinh AaronMK Point taken, there. ...The nuclear arms race is a silly, scary thing.

@Shorticus

Russia now too is determined to no longer reduce the size of its arsenal but make it larger and produce a wider array of nuclear delivery methods. They recently boasted they produced a torpedo with a nuclear war-head that can evade modern submarine detection systems to deliver a nuclear explosion directly to ports and coastal targets.

American Dream: A Shattered Union

I'll be honest... I was very close, after you first asked me to keep my focus in the U.S., asking if I could make a nation of Carribean pirates that attacked the shores of New England on motorboats converted into attack boats.

I thought better of it. Gonna shoot you that PM, by the by, so I can do all my editing in one fell swoop.

@Shorticus

I've been trying to half-ass encourage someone to do that since they're there on the map. There's some interesting possibilities with the Caribbean, while not directly relevant to the US itself.

While not being Vikings they'd be the source of some exotic goods unavailable in the mainland. I've called it to my friends the Rum Road, and like the Silk Road that's its name-sake you'd have Jamaican, Cuban, or Trinidadian merchants sailing for the mainland to sell rum, sugar, tobacco, and other exotics in exchange for staple crops otherwise unavailable on the islands. They'd be getting their daily bread while providing high-value produce to the north.

There's also the matter of Jamaican pirates, but you already know that.

And it's not to mention that sugar cane is actually a more efficient means of producing ethanol. While not high in energy output like petroleum (you're not going to be powering diesel motors like large ships, trucks, tanks, or power-plants) they'd still have a high-grade enough fuel to power smaller ships they could use to ply their trade or raids to America so long as they keep to the blue waters of the coast.

American Dream: A Shattered Union

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

Yeah, there's other states that could probably produce the gas / oil needed that would fare better in the nuclear apocalypse. I mean, frankly... A few cities in Texas might get struck, but a lot of it isn't very high priority, and there are oil wells in those regions.

@Shorticus

If we're going for MAD then chances are they would get fucked. The only thing effecting the number of nuclear weapons would be ICBM defense systems filtering out incoming missiles, but the anti-missile defense network may not be big enough to down them all and we'd get a significant enough rain. And a lot of big population and industrial centers will probably be targeted by several to assure their physical annihilation.

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

That would be an issue. I would say biofuels but even today we aren't really implimenting those so that's off the table.

The contested refinery could be an interesting plot point tho.

@ClocktowerEchos

It's an issue today because it means higher food costs and people actually want to eat. Food cost would be even more contentious in the apocalypse than it would now when you actually need to put more people in the field to pick crops than we do now (we have GPS-controlled combines that do the work of an army with only the button press of one, modern society has stepped way back from rural agricultural life).

American Dream: A Shattered Union

@Dinh AaronMk

Oh, ahh. Sorry about that mix up.

From a quick google search there are oil wells and refineries in Illinois but you do have a point, Chicago would be another likely center of a nuke attack and I don't think anyone currently has the technology to completely rebuild one from scratch that would be able to rival current ones in terms of efficiency or volume.

@ClocktowerEchos

I'm sure you could use ethanol too but corn is a very inefficient form of ethanol and without machines to farm the corn then turning corn or soy into fuel would be a severe waste of food crops.

And while Illinois has at least one major refinery it'd be something likely contested by Kansas it's so close to them.

American Dream: A Shattered Union

@ClocktowerEchos

No, Illinois. I thought you were on about Illinois.

American Dream: A Shattered Union

@ClocktowerEchos

How do you refuel ships without a refinery or source of fuel?

Not to mention Chicago being the third largest city in the US it'd get hit harder than Lansing or Detroit.

Why Do You Like Undertale?

When OP complains about memes in the game I got to wonder if he's conflating memes that have become memes after Undertale were copied by Undertale into Undertale because I didn't find anything that isn't sourced to Undertale already.

And I absolutely refuse to do a genocide run of the game because I do not want to stab Goatmom again or kill Goatgod. And no amount of genocide can bring by Goatbro.

very ashamed right now

You can just imagine the career right-wing pundits rolling out the "Eye of a needle" talking points, or pointing out how Reagan funneled money to Islamic Terrorists in Afghanistan.

@Vilageidiotx

"You remember Iran-Contra? Yeah, that happened. And it was all Reagan's fault!"

very ashamed right now

he'd rather support someone who said he could shoot someone and get away with it than vote for a dem.

@Taaj

But what if said man who shot a man and got away with it was a Democrat-but-also-probably-not.